Category Archives: Elizabeth Chaponot

Pilgrimage Reflection

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Last year I applied and was selected to participate in the Mt. St. Mary’s Pilgrimage in France to learn about the Sisters of Saint Joseph and see firsthand where everything started. Honestly, I applied because I thought it was a cool way to go to France for free, learn a little more about the Sisters, and get to visit my family post-pilgrimage. It did not anticipate how transformative and magical the pilgrimage would be.  On a human level, the connection with other pilgrims on the trip was in and of itself awesome enough.  You add to that the thoughtfulness and intentionality of what we visited and how we experienced the CSJ history and you get an amazing experience.  It is honestly pretty great that the pilgrimage itself was so awesome because I ended up catching COVID (as did another 16 or the 23 in our group) which laid me out for the whole 5 days post pilgrimage — making the family piece not possible.  I did have a view of the Eiffel tower from my hotel room in Paris so I am not gonna complain, there are worse ways to experience COVID.

When I think of the various places we saw, it is difficult to pick one thing that resonated more than others.  The kitchen is the obvious pick but it is not what I am selecting.  I think for me the magic was Annecy which was the first leg of our journey. Our trip was about understanding our origins.  We tend to start with the sisters.  But for me, seeing the origins of what came before the sisters helped me understand them better.  Learning about François de Sales and Jeanne de Chantal and their unique story was the missing piece I needed.  Jeanne de Chantal’s unique entry into the church as a widow and mother and how the Daughters of the Visitation paved the way for something new inspired me.  The church is not always viewed as the most inclusive space as politics and prejudice often take center stage in the media.  I knew the Sisters were a progressive order.  I had seen this in writing before I joined Carondelet.  I have experienced it in the walls and spirit of Carondelet the school I work for.  

But understanding the origins, and seeing it firsthand, really grounded me to truly understand why this CSJ school and mission feel so right.  I see how the charism is so embedded in the DNA of the sisters that no other way forward is possible.  This realization was transformative.  As a member of what is viewed as a marginalized community, I have sometimes encountered raised eyebrows from friends when I say I work for a Catholic school.  Living the pilgrimage and seeing our origins, I see more than ever that this is where I am called to be.  I am proud to be helping carry this charism into the future.

Alludo Journey

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I know that Alludo is not everyone’s cup of tea.  I also know that I personally let missions pile up too much as Alludo feedback gets bumped for other “priority” needs.  But I have to say, I always end up loving the time I do spend reading people’s reflections and missions.  I learn so much about my colleagues, about what they are doing, and really truly enjoy how thoughtful they are.  I want to run around and share some of the classroom experiments with the whole faculty but Alludo is a contained system.  

This weekend I am sitting on an unseasonably warm, sunny patio, drinking amazing coffee and listening to a weird quantity of Emeryville birds chirping (who knew?) and reading Alludo missions.  I got sucked in this time with Kate Cutright’s station rotation experiment to get students into Colton Whitehead’s Underground Railroad and Katie Hutches’ Data-Driven student centers to help students get unstuck through meeting them where they are at.  I want to share the reflections on the blog but feel that “it is not my story to tell.”  So I am blogging… I am blogging in hopes that they and others understand that sometimes their Alludo experiments and the amazing reflections connected to them are share-worthy and that their colleagues would love to hear from their learning and try some of these great strategies in their own classes!

Back in the classroom

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When DLS lost a teacher last semester and threatened to close two sections of the very popular elective, Criminal Justice, Jen and I saw this as an opportunity to jump back in the classroom.  “We will team-teach it,” we said; “coming back from a pandemic won’t be that hard,” we said; “it is a subject we are interested in and have a grain of knowledge about,” we declared…

Nevermind that many trusted colleagues said we were on drugs to take this on right now…

Flashback to this summer and our frantic realization that a “grain of knowledge” does not a teacher make… this led to the purchase of textbooks and content material to provide us with foundation support that would keep us — we hoped — a few steps ahead of the students.

So we are a quarter in, and I find myself channeling the first lines of the Dickens classic…

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…

That probably sums up our first quarter — and teaching as a profession.

My takeaways so far:

  • My biggest sense of conflict is fearing that I am doing either the Admin piece or the Teaching piece injustice.  They both take time and they require different brains — even if some skills transfer
  • You get attached to your students.  I love the connection a classroom provides.  They frustrate me, they make me laugh, I find myself cheering for them on the sidelines
  • I think about the class ALL THE TIME…
  • Sometimes the stuff that worked best with my middle schoolers is not “too childlike”
  • Picking a subject I have never taught as a step back into the classroom was hella stupid
  • Teaching takes a bunch of time… it’s good time but there is no escaping that it takes ALOT of time if you want to do it right
  • I love the high you get when everything lands and the classroom energy is humming.  It almost makes up for the pit of despair when everything flops
  • I can’t let go of my forever defaults.  I have always believed that students need constant feedback and a lot of formative assessments… that their grade can not depend on just a couple summative assessments
  • I am conscious that I am much more conscious of the SEL piece than I was back in the day.  I always tried to put myself in their shoes to try and anticipate how lessons would go and what they needed… but I did that as a collective.  I find myself scanning the room and feeling how things land differently for different groups. I am very aware of the body language of our students of color and their absolutely not taking the bait about engaging in difficult conversations about racist policing
  • I have a lot of boys — 26 students of my 31 are DLS.  They are lovely.  They require many middle school strategies.  I would have preferred having a class with many more girls, only because I wanted to have a bigger sample size of what a Senior Student of Carondelet at the end of 4 years of the innovative curriculum can do
  • I like team teaching.  I have a great partner.  This may not make sense, but when I raised my boys I was a single parent and what I felt was the hardest thing about single parenting was about the horrific loneliness of not being able to talk to someone about “your project” — someone who gets it and would not get bored of the topic.  I have never team-taught but I enjoy the process.  The conversations, the compromises, the debriefs  
Maybe the most humbling takeaway came from our end-of-unit evals.  The feedback Jen got from her period 1 was pretty much identical to my period 4.  The team-teacher thinks “wow that is great, we are building something that allows students in each group to get a similar experience.”  My personal ego would love to feel that who delivers the content makes a difference :-).
I have no regrets about having jumped back into the classroom.  Jen and I are still measuring the sustainability of keeping this up — you will get a different answer from us on different days.  

Virtual Sharing out: Breaking the walls of Alludo

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I am not sure this qualifies as a blog post per say, it may be more of an open invitation.  We are now on year three of Alludo and, I have to say, it is a great pleasure to be one of the readers of people’s reflections and learning journeys. 

Like the blog, I learn more about the hidden gems and talent of Carondelet through these thoughtful mission share-outs than I do from a one-stop classroom observation.  The observation captures one moment in time but does not always give me a feel for the thought behind the class: the “what came before” and “what will come after” (which is where the magic happens).

Last year, in the level three section, Joan and I tried to incorporate shared experiences amongst the Alludo players using VoiceThread as the interactive platform that would allow players to reflect on Parker Palmer’s Courage to Teach.  The completely asynchronous book club has pros and cons (a pro for me is the need to revisit the book every time a new reader comes into the mix)…

This summer, we decided that we wanted to experiment with connecting our learning platforms and provide access to the Reflections both through the Alludo missions AND the blog.  Alludo and the blog do not always hit the same audience so let’s see if we can have these worlds collide.

So what do you need to do?

Step One:  Connect to Voicethread (www.voicethread.com)

  • Register for a free VoiceThread account with your Carondelet Email address
  • Add yourself to the Alludo Group to be able to access the “locked” platform and interact with others (Link to invitation)

Then participate and interact with others on the different Voicethreads that are all themed around sharing what you have learned during this whole COVID19 world and how it has impacted your teaching and learning.

Here are your 4 options:

Voicethread shareout on an experience in which you meet and collaborate with colleagues

Voicethread in which you share about a podcast/webinar and how that impacted your practice

Voicethread in which you share about a book you have read and how that impacted your practice

Voicethread in which you share about an online course and how that impacted your practice

Empatía

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After watching the Brené Brown video on empathy on the first retreat day, I thought about how I could incorporate SEL in my classes and adapt it to my Spanish curriculum. I found that it would be a nice fit for the beginning of the year because the first chapter in the curriculum relates to vocabulary pertaining to one of the AP themes of interpersonal relationships and how we connect with people.

I scoured YouTube and I found the Brené Brown video on empathy dubbed in Spanish. I found it with Spanish subtitles and I decided to do a mini lesson on empathy with my students and embed it into the chapter vocabulary. We had a discussion in class in Spanish about what students thought empathy was and if we as a society are very empathetic or not. Students emphatically claimed that we are not a very empathetic society, however they could not articulate what we could do to practice more empathy in our relationships.

I proceeded to show the video and afterward, many students said that they did not understand the video because it was too fast. I showed the video again, and paused it every 20-30 seconds and we had discussions of the meanings in chunks. Students were able to understand the video more. I showed the video a third time, in English, so that students could compare what they understood in Spanish to what was actually being said. They said that they got the general gist of the topic. 

I assigned a video diary (a video blog that students are assigned weekly) to articulate their thoughts in Spanish about what they thought were the obstacles for empathy.

We wrapped up by doing a comprehension worksheet as an exit ticket and a check for listening and comprehension.

At the end, I had every intention to do a unit evaluation for this activity, however I personally felt that it went horribly. Students did not seem to engage with the material and they seemed confused, bored, and not connected and I felt that maybe the subject was a little over their heads. I abandoned the lesson and moved on.

A month later, I realized that I had written this activity down as one of my year goals, and that I was going to do a unit evaluation on the lesson, and feeling dejected, I didn’t do my goal. I decided that I would show the video again to my students to see how much they remembered and if anything about empathy had sunk in and if anything we had discussed in class resonated and stuck with students a month later. I was completely shocked to see that students were able to recall the lessons and vocabulary that we had talked about a month later, without even reviewing the vocabulary. I showed the video one more time, and students were shocked to see that they were able to understand the video and pick up on more vocabulary that they recognized from the previous chapter. Not only that, but they were able to identify and practice how to be empathetic in their daily relationships.

I conducted a unit evaluation and the results were pretty positive. I’m happy I did this lesson (twice) and that I was able to incorporate SEL as an overarching theme in my classes. Here are some examples from the unit evaluation:

¿Cómo Se Dice, “Maths” en Español?: A Collaborative Vlog

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WATCH THIS VIDEO, YOUR WORLD WILL CHANGE….(probably not, but just watch because I put work into it) 🙂


So I don’t like math. 
I never have. I like being competitive and getting points on Alludo though,
which is why I ended up signing myself up for an online maths course for math
teachers. (Yes, I said “maths”). I really didn’t have any intention of getting anything out of this
course and I really did just take it to get more Alludo points, because who
needs sleep? I also wanted to know what my students go through on a regular
basis to see if I can adjust my curriculum according to their needs and how
they learn, so I gave maths a whirl.


 Much to my surprise, it wasn’t really a course about math,
(maths) in the videos that I watched (on double speed to save time), but rather
a philosophy on teaching and learning that can be applied to various realms and
curricula. While I watched the videos I noticed language pertaining to “fixed
mindset” and “growth mindset”, and the concept of “yet.”
 Students in these
videos stated “I’m not good at math” “I’m just not a math person” “This isn’t
how my brain works”, and I began to make some connections: I noticed many of my
own students in Spanish saying similar things “I’m just no good at languages” “My
parents weren’t good at language, so neither am I” “I had bad teachers in middle
school, so I’m not very good”. I started to create a correlation between
Spanish teaching and learning and math, and when I approached Lesley Schooler
about this connection, she agreed that there might be some similarities. Like
math, students in Spanish are afraid to make mistakes, they put an obtrusive
filter on producing and speaking the language because they’re afraid they will
make mistakes and not be precise, so they just don’t speak. I found the
neurological studies in the math online course through Stanford to be
fascinating with the connections that I could make with my students in Spanish
class. I realized that the material needs to be slower and more attainable for
students, and not penalize mistakes, but point out mistakes, and allow students
to correct them (this is where the brain grows) and they shouldn’t be marked
down for making mistakes, but they should fix them so that they enjoy the process
of learning. The videos present the idea of the journey and process in learning. Students try and think aloud and defend and explain their findings rather than simply right and wrong and they move on. I am inspired to incorporate more of this style into my classes. The conundrum that I’m having is, while this is a great way to encourage learning and brain growth, I want to know that I am preparing students for college, and upper level learning where there might still be an institutionalized, systematic fixed mindset that they also need to be able to navigate. Would I be doing my students a disservice if I don’t require precision as well? I’m not sure. 
I shared these thoughts with Lesley and we made other
insights and connections as well. I think this is a good course to take, even
if you don’t teach math because a lot of the principles can be applied in many
fields of study. Also I actually learned some math, and I don’t hate it as much
as before. Yay!

Shout out to Mitch

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Mitch recently posted that comments were not always plentiful on our lovely blog… his post made me feel like he was having a Sting/Police moment and that the blog process was reminiscent of the 80s song “Message in a Bottle” (for those of you who are children of the 80s and fans of The Police, you are welcome for the earworm that I have just implanted).

His post was making me wonder… so I took a look at our modest internal blog’s stats… and thought I would share….

14,596 page views for the now 345 posts since the blog started last year… Results were cool enough to make me want to share… and move the earworm to the last stanza of the song where “100 million bottles, washed up on the shore…”

🙂

Adding on for Lent

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One of my dad’s favorite expressions has always been “when in Rome…”

I think I have carried that to some extent in how I approach life.  So when at Carondelet, I figure I need to live the full experience and that means engaging in the Lent process.  This year, I decided to go beyond the “no processed sugar — including alcohol” type resolution I had previously set for myself and I adopted the option presented during our mass this year that Lent could be adding something instead of removing something.

So I pondered what I could add… What resonated for a variety of reasons was for me to discover Brene Brown… I love her Ted Talks but I had never made the leap into actually committing to the process of reading one of her books.  Jen’s post earlier this year about Daring to Lead had placed her back in my consciousness and I was gonna grab that when I decided to ask Google if that was the best book to start with.  The question led me to a Brene blog in which she recommends reading 3 books in order:

  • The Gift of Imperfection
  • Daring Greatly
  • Rising Strong
So that was that, from the proverbial horse’s mouth, my mission for the 40 days that lay ahead of me.  Challenge accepted.  What I did not know then that I know now is that Brene was filming an hour and fifteen minute special on Netflix called the “Call to Courage” which essentially gives you a readers’ digest of the three books and is absolutely fabulous.
My takeaways from my Lenten journey are multiple… first on the process of committing to something different for 40 days is powerful and relevant.  Brene was what I needed at this point in

my life, at times as a validation for the journey I have traveled and at others as an invitation to “rumble” with things that will help me grow.  Her basic foundation is about developing the courage to accept — embrace your imperfections… to live authentically and ultimately to understand that courage and vulnerability are two sides of the same coin and that one can not exist without the other.  Brene gets added to the list of bad-ass women that help move our world forward.

I still want to get to Jen’s book recommendation but I think I need to sit with what I got for a couple months and attack that one over the summer.  If you have an hour, check out Brene’s special, it is worth the detour… and she is funny and funny is good.

On Guilt, Community, and Challenges

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So I have been having a series of senior moments this week:
  • forgetting to pull info for the recommendation of student placement for courses;

  • saddened when I arrived yesterday to school realizing I left my smoothie lonely in the fridge at home; 
  • getting a clear picture in my brain this morning as I left the gym of the milk in the frother and the brewed coffee still in the machine… 
This forgetfulness and spaciness immediately triggers anxiety and catastrophizing about what is wrong…



….  Turn page…



After a lovely chat with Jen, Janine, and Carrie who believe I do NOT have Alzheimer’s and that there could be other causes, which include the possibility that there is a lot of people’s plate and I am no exception.   In all this I have been left pondering over a Peet’s bought Almond milk latte about:
  • the contagion of guilt, 
  • the value of community, 
  • and the reality that what does not kill us makes us stronger.



On Guilt
I was not raised Catholic but, obviously have heard the expression of Catholic guilt… and now feel the inescapable contagion of the rich energy that faith and the spirit of the sisters which infuses this school is progressively converting me — one of these expressions come through the process of guilt.  I currently suffer from the accumulation of books on nightstand and needing to blog guilt… To take one thing OFF my plate, I have decided to STOP and actually blog and free my brain temporarily of this one pesky thought. Mea Culpa that you, dear reader, are the recipient of my unload… which of course leads me to my second thought, community.



On Community
The holidays are a time to sit back and reflect a little and, although this week has been a little “extra” as the younguns like to say, it has really left me feeling very grateful for the community that I feel privileged to be a part of at Carondelet.  Four days of roller coaster post break have been filled with images of:
  • being saved by Katie by her Powerschool magic powers on Tuesday

  • huge anticipation as I wait for text messages updates for the birth of little Cameron Mix; 
  • the privilege of being welcomed to participate in Frosh MBS planning meetings an engaging in amazing discussion on what we can do to develop genuine faith and health-based wellness in our frosh world that will contribute to empowering the whole child; 
  • Ginger talking me off a ledge related to last-minute scheduling set-up reassuringly stating that I just need to “take a lap,”  
  • feeling the adrenaline rush at the packed Carondelet SOS basketball game watching the girls win against of the top-ranked schools the country; 
  • Janine sharing that Yoga was challenging this morning because a pesky visual of me at a CHS game screaming “you are the light” at our players as a form of empowering encouragement
  • Karina walking into my office and in 30 seconds committing to embarking on a whole food plant based lifestyle with me and commenting I need sweet potatoes in my lentil salad concoction
  • So many more…

I think that the sense of community is actually in part a result of the legacy of the sisters and the origins of our school.  We may not have the kitchen here at Carondelet, but we do see its spirit alive in so many ways. My ultimate takeaway on that is again Carrie’s mission activity about what we want for the future…


On Life Challenges
Patient reader following my meandering stream of consciousness, you may rest assured, I will circle back to my initial angst and what it all means, Sarah tells me my brain farts or senior moments of the week are actually a sign that, despite the hours of website/form scheduling system building while binge-watching reruns of SVU, I did, in fact, shut my brain off a little and move to vacation mode. She declared that what I am experiencing is a transition back to the fast lane which is causing the brain to backfire… It is true-engines take a little time to pick up speed…



I shared this morning that I think one of my greatest professional gifts was to be blessed with two amazing boys who absolutely HATED school.  I really think it made me a better teacher back in the day. Because I loved them so much, it forced me to try and understand the experience from their eyes.  It forced me to check my personal assumptions and understanding and try to think about it a different way… my point with this is that it was love that pushed me to be a better educator… and this also brings me back to the sisters and their what their legacy will carry forward in the years to come.  You follow their history and their lead and it is one guided by love in the spirit of social justice.



It is that love, energy, and spirit that must guide our innovation and our school to saving the future…



And remember (spoken in a loud stadium cheer) “You are the light!”


That One Time I Had An Idea…

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I have so many ideas that I don’t even know what to do with them. Finding the time and energy for all of the things swirling through my head is a daunting task. Once I have an idea, and I think it’s great, I automatically think about how I can make it better…and then I get overwhelmed and it becomes a vicious cycle. 
I actually had so many ideas for blog posts, and they all live in my head and I haven’t found the time until now (because I have to) to actually compose my ideas in this blog…woops?
Anyway. My most recent idea came from Lacy Matthews: 
She’s the best! 🙂

who made an announcement about immigration over the loud speaker one morning during prayer in first period. I got inspired in that instant to assign my Spanish 3 Honors students the task of writing a personal narrative of an immigrant coming from a Spanish speaking country during this time. Students were to write their story in the first person from the perspective of an immigrant (obviously in Spanish).  First they were required to pick a scenario: which country? What is this person like? What is their family like? What challenges or successes arose from the immigration process?

Students researched social media posts, news articles, blogs, vlogs, pretty much anything available to them to get the most accurate, authentic perspective they could find. And they really enjoyed it. They were tasked to work in groups, and produce a dramatic, first person perspective narrative of what an immigrant might go through in various scenarios.
My students found themselves learning about government policies regarding immigration, polarizing perspectives, the daily struggles of someone living in a war-torn country or a country with limited economic opportunities. They found themselves feeling compassionate toward individuals that they had never encountered before. They learned things that weren’t readily available in a textbook or a lecture, and that’s awesome.  Oh, and I guess they learned some Spanish along the way too 😉
I found that my students were really into this project. They took pride in what they were doing,  and they wanted to do it well. They were meticulous with the grammar, conjugations, subject verb agreement, adjectives, and the best word choice, because as one student put it: “I want to do these people justice. Their story is important, and I owe it to them to do a good job.” 
(And then my teacher heart exploded into a million happy pieces!) 
I later found out from one of my students who has Lacy for religion class that she was simultaneously teaching about immigration and was showing a film titled: “Which Way Home?’ (I think that’s what the movie was called, my brain turned to mush during Christmas break, correct me if I’m wrong, Lacy). Students in her class were also privileged to see a guest speaker who discussed immigration policy and bills regarding the issue. I was delighted to know that several of my students in my Spanish class also share Lacy’s class and we were discussing the same themes.
This unintentional collaboration happens more often than not with my classes. Somehow whatever I happen to be teaching completely coincides with another discipline, and then BAM! Interdisciplinary teaching. The only problem is, I don’t want to have to find out from my students what’s happening in other classes, but it’s a welcome blessing anyway. I love to see that my students are making the connections on their own without it being forced. I like when learning is organic, and when students can come to their own conclusions on their own. 
Back to what I was saying about so many ideas…I like this project…It has been great so far, but I want to do MORE with it. I’m open to more ideas and suggestions because I want to expand on this topic. I don’t want to just leave it as an essay. Let me know your thoughts!